Fireflies
by RandomFandom5
Summary: The year is 2013. The One Ring has been reforged. The Dark Lord has been reborn. But so has everyone else. Join them in their attempt to destroy the second Ring, while at the same time trying to stop history repeating itself.
1. Dedications

Fireflies

_This story is dedicated to the following: my friends for being constant inspirations, sources of amusement, and annoyances, (Silverfern for not making fun of my fandoms (and being in most of them), Bluefire for never failing to crack me up, Charles for being like a journal that gives advice and snarky comments, Brigitte for matching me in nerdiness and far surpassing me in awesomeness, Olivia and Anh Thi for their ever-cheerfulness, and Juneseo for telling me his dumb jokes and actually liking my Gollum impression), YouTube for teaching me most of the songs that appear in this story, and most of all, everyone who believes in reincarnation, for being the reason I wrote this story. Shine on, you crazy diamonds._

_*~*_  
_I'd like to make myself believe_  
_That planet Earth turns slowly_  
_It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep_  
_'Cuz everything is never as it seems..._  
_*~*_


	2. Losing Things And Finding Other Things

So...um...hi.

There are three main reasons for my long absence (which I am SO SORRY for): school, the Internet that isn't this website, and the fact that I started the TV series _Supernatural._

This is one of my next big projects after quitting on the Johanna Potter series (but not for good, I promise. There will be another series set in that universe, and hopefully Johanna herself could make appearance. Just not for a little while). The other, even _bigger _project is one that I just started. It's going to be a really long series, and it's a crossover between Harry Potter and Supernatural. I'll explain it in more detail when I actually publish it (which probably won't be for a long time). So this is all you're getting so far. Sorry!

Basically, I thought, "What if the characters from LotR and The Hobbit were reincarnated into modern times?" And this is the epic, disastrous, confusing result. The key word there being "confusing," at least at first. The POV will change every chapter with no particular pattern, and the first few chapters will mostly be exposition. If you have any questions, let me know

I don't own LotR or any of the other things I may reference in this chapter.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter One: Losing Things And Finding Other Things

In which Diana Halton has a Twitch, Olivia Atwood is one heck of a friend, the word "then" is used in excess, small shiny objects should be avoided at all times, and Gandalf gets punk'd.

The voice has been in my head since before I knew it wasn't normal.

Oh, I knew it wasn't _good_. That was completely obvious. What do you think, I was stupid or socially inept or something? Well, I'm more than a little socially inept, but definitely not stupid (much (alright, I'm an awkward idiot, happy?)).

I just didn't know it was somehow _my_ fault.

Well, I guess, in a weird roundabout way that involves a past life, the only person I know who I could call my friend with complete confidence, and a possessed jewelry item, it kind of _is_ my fault. I just didn't _know_ that back then.

I thought _everyone_ had voices in their heads that informed them that it was so dumb to just sit on the swing without pumping. That snarled that only cowards and babies cried. That told them the other kids were right when they called them retarded. That reminded them that they didn't have any friends and nobody liked them.

I know what you're thinking. I wasn't scitzofrenic-skizzofrenic-skitsofrenic-I didn't have MPD. At least, not yet. And only my family (my mom and my two older brothers, Theo and Joey) knew about it. And the kids at school, I think. It would explain all the weird looks I got.

Joey reacted the best to it. He treated it like it was no big deal, even though he knew it was a pretty huge deal. Mom thought it was just an imaginary friend (I didn't know anything, so I thought she might have been right. I didn't understand the word "friend").

Shortly after I moved from Missouri to Olive Woods, California, the voice became wrong about one thing.

I had a friend (_and_ I knew what that meant).

I was sitting on the swings. The playground was empty. Everyone else was on their way home. I kicked the ground and swung back.

"Puh-thet-tic," said the voice. "You're not gonna just sit there, are you? I told you that's stupid."

"N-_no_," I attempted to snarl. It was actually pretty pathetic. No surprise the voice burst out laughing.

"_Pathetic_," it repeated.

"I am NOT!"

"Oh yeah? Prove it. Prove you're not pathetic."

I said nothing. I felt like I couldn't open my mouth.

"What I thought."

The voice had the decency to shut up when I was actually swinging. The fact that I jumped off the swing at full height and landed flat on my stomach and almost snapped my entire body in half was all me.

"I'M DYING! IIIIIIIIIIII'M DYYYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!" I apparently shrieked (according to my best friend, who will be making her daybu-dabou-first appearance in a second. I don't know why I let her give input about this).

"Ya know, if ya were actually dying, ya prob'ly wouldn't've done that, wouldja?"

I lifted my head up and saw a very freckly hand in front of my face. I must have stared blankly at it for a long time, because she said irritably, "I'm helpin' ya up, loony."

"'M not loony," I said to the dirt and grass in my mouth.

"Sure ya aren't."

"I think I hate you," I told her.

"Who knows? I might hate you back. But we'll have to talk more to find out."

I made a whiny noise in the back of my throat (again, this is my friend's account).

"...you're gonna have to get up at some point, ya know."

I made a more frustrated version of the whiny noise from earlier and grabbed the freckly hand (I had nothing to lose, right?).

We crossed over to a spot on the other side of the playground and sat in the shade of a low wall. I surveyed the girl warily. Backwards green baseball cap perched on a shoulder-length bird's nest of dirty-blond hair. Bright brown eyes. Small, flattish nose. A ton of freckles. A t-shirt that probably had some sarcastic slogan on it (she's always worn those). Filthy jeans (similar to mine). Scuffed-up sandals. Top it all off with a mischievous-looking grin. She seemed harmless. But you know what they say about books and covers.

"So...what's your story, kid?" asked the girl.

"I'm six."

"I'm seven."

I couldn't think of a response to that for a few seconds. "Don't call me kid," I finally said.

"Sor-ree," muttered the girl. "...my name's Olivia. Olivia Atwood. What's yours?"

I tilted my head to the side. "I'm Diana Halton. I know people call me Twitch sometimes, 'cuz I twitch a lot. My mom calls it nervous energy," I said, pretending I knew what nervous energy was.

_Real smart. Now she'll never be your friend. Not that she wanted to._

_I know. Shut up._

"Tuh-wiiih-itch," said Olivia, rolling the word through her mouth like she'd never heard it before. "Nah. You don't look like a Twitch. Do you have another nickname?"

"Huh?"

Olivia stared hard at me. It reminded me of the way I stared at people. And that wasn't a good sign.

"Dee. I wanna call you Dee. Di's lame. An' I don' wanna just call you Diana."

"Why not?" My voice somehow got even tinier.

"'Cuz I never _ever_ call my friends by their real name," Olivia said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

About ten minutes passed before I had to go. During those about-ten-minutes, we chattered about every single thing that came to our minds. I felt different after that. I wasn't any more confident (I still shrank back when someone called me a nasty name). But I was happier. I'd never met anyone like Olivia (other than maybe Theo). Someone who actually liked me. Someone who could tease me without acting like I would shatter with one wrong word (thought I'm not quite sure how untrue that was (or is, for that matter)).

But most of all?

I had something to say to the voice.

_Twitch? _I asked it (because I had a name for it now).

_What?_

_You're wrong._

_What!?_

_I have a friend._

* * *

But it wasn't that simple.

The nightmares started two days later.

The first one wasn't even that scary (at least not at the beginning). I was wandering around near a creek. The weird thing was, there were two voices in my head. One of them was, of course, Twitch (who was just a kind of hissing somewhere to my right ((at the beginning, anyway)). But for some reason, Twitch hadn't _always_ been there, and it confused me. The other one was even weirder. It was kind of...singing or something, in a language I didn't understand. But it was so buaetiful-beutiful-pretty. Even when I woke up, I wanted to hear it. More of it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

More nightmares came. Mostly, they were the same as the first one. They got darker and damper with each one.

And the dreams weren't all that scary. It was mostly just dark and wet and cold and hungry and killing and eating and...maybe they were a little scary. But not as scary as some other unrelated nightmares I had had.

You have to understand, I was _six years old. _Six. And even I know that six-year-olds don't need self-loathing, weird nightmares, and everyone hating them lumped into their little midget brains. But I still didn't tell anyone, not even Olivia. _Especially_ not Olivia. Whenever I thought about her and the nightmares at the same time, I felt an awful, twisty guilt somewhere in my stomach. I didn't know why, and I didn't want to think about it. _Coward, _Twitch informed me.

(I also thought I heard Twitch saying something I couldn't figure out in a different kind of voice, a scarier one, but I wasn't sure.)

One of the ones I remembered most involved some person. I didn't even know if he was a person, because I remember wondering what he was in the dream. He was trying to do something that I could tell him how to do, but Twitch and me both didn't want to do it. But then he said something that reminded me of something else, and I asked him something, and then he ended up making a bet with me. I was allowed to eat him if I won (oh yeah, I ate people in these dreams. It actually didn't bother me when I was awake). He won the bet.

And before I explain this part, I have to tell you about It.

It was something. I didn't know what It was when I was awake. It was small, and I could hold It in my cupped hands.

And he _stole_ It from me.

That was the first time I woke up _screaming_ so hard it hurt all the next day. Joey ran into my room and (according to him) I did not react well to him trying to touch me. I clawed wildly at him, shrieking "IT'S GONE! HE STOLE IT! _I'LL KILL HIM!_"

It went like that for a lot more nights. I woke up shrieking like a fucking baby and I beat Joey up when he tried to calm me down. I thought that was the worst one of those I would have.

But then, about fifteen nights and ten dreams after the first one, I got the worst nightmare I had ever had in my life (and it's still pretty fucking high on the list).

I was dragged up to this tower, and these awful things-that-weren't-people started torturing me and I didn't know why...and then they asked me a question. And whatever they were asking me to do, to tell them, made me _so angry. _It was something I'd never do in a million years, but then they were torturing me again and it hurt, it hurt so much, and I'm a coward.

Joey says he'd never forget that night, which is weird, because I barely remember it at all. He says I made the most horrible noises he'd ever heard. I shrieked like nails on a chalkboard, gasped like a fish on dry land, and made a very disturbing noise somewhere between that hacking cough you get when you're really sick, a retch, and a cat with a hairball (these were Joey's _exact words_ (he makes weird metaphors a lot, it's kind of a thing with him)). Whatever. It doesn't really matter to me. No, not at all, no.

And then there was another dream with some hippie dude who was probably high on some cosmic shit. He looked like Dumbledore and he asked me a bunch of weird questions that Twitch screamed at me for answering. And some other guy came in and dragged me off somewhere that reminded me of spiders for some reason. There were a lot of snotty, creepy blond people. I was a prisoner. I hated everything. Then I escaped.

Then I found these people. One of them was the guy that had taken me to the spidery blond place. One of them was one of the spidery blond people. One of them seemed like a Warrior From A Far-Off Land (which he was). Four of them were stupid. And one of them had It. So I followed them.

But then they split up. And I followed the one who had It and one of the stupid ones because they had It.

When they finally realized I was there and almost killed me, they ended up not actually killing me. They did drag me around on a rope-leash, though. And that wasn't fun. I somehow ended up promising to do something for them. Twitch didn't want me to. It said we were going to that place where they had tortured me. But I didn't leave. I almost did, but...

The first one (the one who had It) I didn't _hate_, exactly. He had been nice to me. He was my friend (Twitch said he wasn't and he was trying to trick me because who would ever be my friend).

But me and Twitch agreed on one thing: the other one.

We both fucking _hated_ him. Almost more than I had hated anyone before. I just wanted to _kill_ him, _strangle_ him, _claw his eyes out and make him crawl._ He was just like the bullies I saw on the playground sometimes, calling me names, winding me up just to wind me up, thinking me and Twitch were the same. But the part that made me want to see his blood on my hands, see him die? He was nice to the first one. He was like the nicest fucking person ever when it came to him, but not me, never me (but I can't even blame him because why would he like me, why wouldn't he try to choke me with burning rope).

I kept forgetting about most of these dreams. I still wasn't telling anyone about them.

It was nothing. It turned out to be some stupid thing that didn't have anything to do with anything. It didn't affect my destiny or any other bullshit like that.

Yeah, right.

* * *

_Six years later_

* * *

It wasn't the sound of knocking that woke me up. Instead, it was the sound of rocks being thrown at my window.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. 4:27 AM. Not too bad. I slid out of bed and shoved the window open. There was Olivia, just like any other summer morning, before anyone else in Olive Woods was awake. She grinned up at me.

"GOOD MORNING, U-NI-VERSE!"

"SHUT UP, O-LIV-I-A!" I imitated her game-show-announcer voice. She completely ignored this.

"Get down here! And _not_ by jumping out the window," she added.

"Buzzkill," I scowled.  
"Whatever, Pocahontas. Just get down here, will ya? There's something really, really, _really_ important I have to tell you."

Her voice seemed to get more serious when she said that part, so I guessed I should get the fuck down there. So, ignoring what she had just said, I swung myself over the windowsill. I dropped onto the ground in a crouch with one hand on the ground supporting me.

"So..." I said slowly, ignoring Olivia's comment about she still didn't know how I could do that. "What was this really, really, really important thing?"  
"Well, the first part's funny," she said thoughtfully. "Ish. It has to do with the Thing."

I was silent for minute. "Oh," I said finally. "The Thing."

We had known about the Thing since we were both seven (Olivia has asked me to tell you that she was almost eight. I would like to tell you that she is a little shit). The Thing is what this whole fucking story is about, so you'll thank me later for explaining it now.

I'll let Olivia explain how we found out about the Thing, but long story short, we're reincarnations of characters from Lord of the Rings.

Wow. Shocking. Bet you didn't see that coming. I'll give you some time to recover.

...

You might wanna get a snack or something while the story's paused.

Okay, unpause. So, we found out when we were seven and Lord of the Rings was being read to us. The second chapter. Basically, the name "Smeagol" was mentioned, I froze up and didn't know why, but then I did know why.

Whoa, okay. Another shocker right there. You must have had no idea which character I was. The nightmares I told you about were particularly suttle-not obvious. Want some more pause time?

...

Again, I'm letting Olivia give you the details, but here's the general idea: Olivia told me she knew what happened and that she was Deagol, I cried a lot, and we ended up making a deal that Olivia would tone down her magpie instinct (she likes shiny things) if I stayed true to the finders-keepers rule.

After a month or two, it stopped being that big a deal (even if Olivia shut up a lot faster when I told her I would kill her if she didn't and my speech pattern got a bit weirder (yes it _did, _yessssss...).

One of the weirdest parts of the Thing was remembering pre-It (the Ring, if you hadn't figured that out (in which case you're probably a fucking idiot)) life. We had been exactly like we are now, snarking at each other and getting in fights over the dumbest things and still being best friends. She gave me stupid nicknames and sang frighteningly off-key and I wondered why I put up with her. I mocked her a lot and beat her at contests and wondered why she put up with me.

Okay, I've wasted enough time telling you a bunch of stuff you should have already known. Now, back to the actual story.

"Yep," said Olivia cheerily. "So it's the middle of the night last night, and the phone rings, right? So my mom goes to answer and is like, 'Who is this?' And she literally spends _five whole minutes_ screaming at whoever was on the other line. It was hilarious. I could, like, see the person in my head. Just staring. Like a moron."

...ladies and gentlemen, my best (and possibly only) friend.

After a few seconds of idiotic giggling, Olivia said, "So yeah. Important thing. So, a few minutes later, she comes in and hands the phone to me. So I'm like, 'nobody ever calls me, why does it have to be in the middle of the night that someone does,' and then this _very deep old guy voice-_" (Here, she did a very bad impression of a man's voice.) "_You are the reincarnation of the third Ringbearer._"

"It would have been funny if he had just said that and hung up."

"That's what I thought he was gonna do!" agreed Olivia. "So I just kind of sat there for a second, and then I was like, I was like, 'Yeah. And?' And then he was like, '...you knew?' And then I-" She paused to laugh hysterically. "I said, 'You got punk'd!' And hung up."

"...you woke me up at _four-thirty in the fucking morning_ to tell me that you told some random guy on the phone that he got punk'd?" I snarled.

"What? No!" She sounded personally offended (as if that's _not_ the kind of thing she would do). "So, yeah, then he just-"

"Wait a second...he called you the third Ringbearer."

"Yeah."

"...dude, you had it for five fuckin' minutes."

"No thanks to you," she added.

"He thinks that qualifies as being a Ringbearer? Also shut up."

Olivia looked even more offended. "Excuse you, I am one of the few people to actually touch the thing, most people just stare at it and go bonkers."

"Lucky you," I said flatly. "So everyone who touches it is a Ringbearer now? That means hippie Dumbledore was a Ringbearer. Serves that bastard right."

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "'Hippie Dumbledore' was the one on the phone, idiot."

I didn't have anything to say to that.

"...why the fuck was Gandalf calling _you?_" I asked.

Olivia bit her lip, looking like she was trying to figure out how to put her next sentence.

"There's a quest," she finally said.

I squinted at her. "Explanation please."

Olivia looked me dead in the eyes for a few seconds, then looked back down. "Diana..._Smeagol_..." (This was surprising, since she rarely called me anything other than "Dee." "Diana" when she's being more serious, "Smeag" when she's feeling particularly companionable and knows I won't do something stupid like freeze or cry or run, "Smeagol" when she's trying to hold my attention, "Gollum" a couple times when she's been really, really, really, _really_ mad at me. Never Twitch, though.)

"It, it...the Ring. It's been reforged. The...the rest of The Lord of the Rings characters have been reincarnated too. _We have to destroy it, Dee._"

Okay, it was right about there that the world stopped rotating, oxygen stopped being a thing, and I seriously considered throwing up.

I took the urge.

Olivia flinched backwards, but stood calmly as I hurled my guts. She didn't even make a face at me when I wiped my mouth on my arm. After all of that, I stared at her for a few seconds.

Then I burst into tears.

(Yeah, yeah, I'm pathetic. Rub it in, why don't you.)


	3. Count On Me (Like One Two Three)

Hi again! I don't think it's been that long...has it? If it has, I'm sorry.

This chapter is special because it's the first chapter in which a certain subject is brought up. That subject, of course, being shipping. The whole dynamic with Frodo/Sam and Merry/Pippin will be explained in more detail. This chapter is more focused on getting all that exposition junk out of the way. I just wanted to warn you, because Frodo/Sam and Merry/Pippin are going to be a thing from here on out. As the ancient proverb goes: don't like, don't read.

So anyway! I don't own LotR, the Bruno Mars song that this chapter was named after, or any other pop culture references I happen to make (it's kind of hard to keep track, because with me, they just kind of come out on their own).

Onward with the story!

* * *

Chapter Two: Count On Me (Like One Two Three)

In which Sophia Chaflin has birthmarks that turn out to be scars, Sam Baker hits Clara Bell in the face with a stick, second breakfast should be a thing (and kind of already is), the most obvious things are the hardest ones to realize, and Sophia and Sam need to get a room.

I was born with the weirdest birthmarks anyone could ever have (although I did know this one kid in sixth grade with one on his shin that looked strikingly like Mr. T).

I have two small, discolored blobs on either one of my collarbones (the one on the left is a lower temperature than the rest of my body and occasionally aches, but the only ones who knew that at first were my twin brother Will and my three best friends), vague mottling on my wrists, and a lot of faint lines all over the rest of my body.

But the worst one was, ironically, the easiest one to see. The one nobody asked about because they were scared that it was connected to a traumatic event in my past (oh, were they right). It was a kind of rawness around my neck. It hurt, but not in the same way that the one on my collarbone hurt. When I was little, memories flashed through my head when I looked at it in the mirror. Memories of fire and choking and shadows at the edge of my vision and pain, so much pain.

But I learned to suppress these random images that flashed through my mind occasionally. I wondered what would happen if I thought more closely about them, but I often ended up hyperventilating with fistfuls of hair in my hands, so I decided that might not be for the best.

Well, there was one person I told all this stuff to, back when I didn't know why it was happening. Just one. Not Will, somehow I didn't feel like he'd understand, even thought he sometimes mentioned images flashing through his head too. I didn't think he'd get the knee-jerk panic reaction I had to them. But somehow, I thought she would get it. "She" being my best friend, who I think I'll give you some backstory about.

It started with a family reunion.

I come from a large and quite rich family. Which of course means a lot of family reunions (which double as opportunities to flaunt our richness. With catering. Lots and lots of catering). These family reunions are very boring and, frankly, extremely passive-aggressive towards certain branches of the family tree. And most of my family is really classist. So naturally I didn't want to be involved. I told my parents this. They basically told me to suck it up. I then complained to Will. I got the same response from him (the moral of this part of the story is, my family sucks).

Most people wouldn't even guess that Will and I are siblings, let alone twins. The shape and size (large and not-quite-round (mine are blue and his are dark brown)) of our eyes and the fact that we have ridiculously pale skin (our parents said that this was a sign that we needed to get outside more) are basically the only physical features we share. Will's hair is tightly curled and the color of wet sand, and mine is violently wavy and almost-black (I keep it in a braid. People say it makes me look like Katniss. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that). I'm also half an inch taller than him (I gloat about that even more than he gloats about the fact that he's seven minutes and forty-eight seconds older than me). In personality, we couldn't be more alike.

So anyway. To get back to the story, it was a family reunion and I wanted nothing to do with my creepy classist relations (there was this bizarre bazillion-year-old aunt and uncle that still stalk Will to this day).

I had managed to escape the aforementioned creepy classist relations. Unfortunately, that also entailed leaving Will in the dust. So I was left wandering around the neighborhood with nobody to talk to. Eventually, I just sat down and stared at nothing, feeling miserable (I have a tendency to do that).

"SOPHIA!"

The shout startled me out of my moping, and I wheeled around to see brown eyes behind pink-framed glasses. And I only knew one person with pink-framed glasses.

"CLARA!" I hollered straight back in her face.

"WE ARE YELLING EACH OTHER'S NAMES!" screeched Clara Bell's sidekick (or so Clara referred to her), Daisy Zhang.

"SHUT UP!"

"NO, YOU SHUT UP!"

"NO, YOU SHUT UP!"

This went on for a while before I shut them both up by yelling "DRAGONS!"  
Clara Bell is my cousin. I took her under my wing when I was nine and she was six and we both had basically no friends. Daisy Zhang stomped onto the scene a year later, and absolutely fell in love with Clara (the feeling was mutual). They've always been inseparable, and they always will be. Like salt and pepper.

Somewhere along the line, it became our tradition to play dragons and knights whenever we were together. Clara and Daisy liked arguing over who got to be the dragons. This time, it was Clara and Daisy, and I was the knight.

It was early evening by the time the epic battle was climaxing. I, Sophia the Mighty as I had christened myself, clumsily swung my branch sword at Slasher (which I would laugh in her face for when I found out what "slasher" could be taken to mean) and Dare, the dragon names Clara and Daisy had made up for themselves. "Slasher" dodged, platinum-blonde hair flying out behind her. I ducked as "Dare" drew in a huge breath, my cardboard armor making it very hard to move. I stood up, sword at the ready, the dragons preparing to turn me to a pile of ash-

-when out of _nowhere, _a yellowy-brown blur streaked onto the scene, branch in hand and a war cry on its lips. Clara thrust an arm out in front of Daisy, shoving the seven-year-old behind her back and trying to make herself appear as dragonly as possible. This mysterious newcomer didn't seem to notice. They swung the branch, their incoherent screams seeming more fearsome than any dragon. Within a few minutes, the "dragons" were defeated. Clara was sprawled out on the ground with scratches on her face and Daisy's face buried in her neck.

For the first time, I got a clear view of my rescuer. A girl around my age, with wildly curly honeyish-brown hair and worn brown sneakers, the toe of which she was grinding into the pavement, her shyness not resembling the courageous warrior from moments ago in the slightest.

I decided I liked her.

"What was that?" demanded Clara, half-sitting up in a position that looked extremely uncomfortable. My knight in invisible armor blushed even more violently than she already had been.

"You were gonna hurt her," she muttered to her shoes. "I had to save her."  
Well. This was a new development.

I smiled. "My hero. I'm Sophia Chaflin, what's your name?"

"Sam," she managed to say even more quietly than her previous statement.  
I thought about that for a moment. "What's it short for?"

"...Sheridan. Sheridan Baker."

I beamed. "Sheridan the Brave. Perfect."

Seven years later

"Are we stopping for breakfast?"

Gandalf looked incredulously at Daisy in the rearview mirror. "You just had-" He paused to consider where that sentence was going. "On second thought, don't answer that."

"You know, second breakfast should seriously be a thing," said Daisy earnestly.

"It is a thing, Pip. Remember?" Clara reminded her (we had all agreed to call each other by our first-life names).

"Oh. Yeah." Daisy slumped against the back of her car seat with an audible oomph as the air jumped out of her lungs. "In my defense, we just got informed of the reincarnation thing a week ago and the quest thing yesterday..._Merry._" (Just because we agreed to it didn't mean we were used to it).

"You two are idiots," I called, lifting my head from where it rested on the window.

"Hey, we called it," said Clara defensively.

"Oh, will you let that go?"

"No, because we _knew,_ man. We _knew_ you were Frodo and Sam. It was obvious from the moment you called Sam 'Sheridan the Brave,'" explained Daisy.

"You were _seven!_" I said incredulously. "You hadn't even _heard_ of Lord of the Rings!"

"Buried memories, man. _Buried memories._"

I groaned in frustration and put my head back down.

"And another clue," teased Clara. "You two constantly need to _get a room. _Frodo, you're resting your head on her shoulder."

I felt Sam, who hadn't said much so far, tense up. That's my Sam, defending my honor. "So?" I asked, squeezing her wrist to calm her down.

"_So_ cut it out with the PDA. It's weird."

"Weird? What do you mean by 'weird?'" Sam wanted to know. "Weird, like sharing utensils when we eat, sleeping in the same bed whenever we get the chance, staring at each other like we're reading each other's minds and smiling weirdly-oh wait, _you do those things._"

"That's...different..." defended Clara weakly.

"We get it, you're a walking ball of homoeroticism, now can we please play the quiet game?" asked Gandalf irritably. But Daisy was staring at Sam like she'd grown an extra arm.

"Did...did you just use sarcasm?" Daisy's face split into a grin. "You _did!_"

"I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!" wailed Clara, leaning across Daisy.

"Seriously? You've _never_ heard Sam use sarcasm before?" I said flatly. "We've known her for five years. She can be the most sarcastic person ever when she feels like it. Which admittedly isn't often, but...you know." I felt Sam smile proudly. She definitely isn't what she first seems.

"See? _See?_" shrieked Daisy. "This is why everyone thinks you're, like, soulmates or whatever! You _know_ this stuff!"

I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to answer, but Sam beat me to the punch.

"'_Soulmates?_' Give me a break. We don't need to be 'soulmates' to know each other well."

"_Thank_ you, Sam," I said loudly. "And you two are acting like you're seeing subtext in a movie or something. We're _actually_ together, remember?"

"We can't _not_ remember!" whined Daisy. "That's what we're saying!"

"Bilbo? Any input?" I called up to Will.

"I think you need to shut up."

"See? This is why I took you on that adventure," Gandalf told Will. "You're occasionally funny." (I could just picture the adorable insulted look on his face.)

"_Occasionally?_" said Will indignantly. "Don't give me 'occasionally funny.' You dragged me all over Middle-Earth, bastard!"

"Oh my god, Bilbo Baggins just called Gandalf a bastard and we got to watch," whispered Daisy gleefully.

"It amuses me how you seem to keep forgetting that you're the reincarnation of one of the four main characters of Lord of the Rings," said Clara dryly. "You act all fangirly about knowing the others."

"I only know you three, Gandalf, Bilbo, and the groupies," Daisy pointed out.

"Yeah, well..." Clara struggled for a retort, failed, and slouched against the back of her seat in perfect imitation of Daisy.

(Just so you know, Daisy is in a band called Smoke And Mist that specializes in covers of pop music and there are three people that are very good friends with the band, but aren't in it-Esmeralda Cortez, Shane Frost (he went by "Charcoal" for some unfathomable reason), and Alex Truman. We nicknamed them "the groupies," which mildly annoyed them, but they let it go.

I was extremely confused by my friends' reactions to them, because Sam turned purple the moment she saw Alex (whom I knew I recognized, but I couldn't remember from where), Daisy got a weird little smile on her face when she saw Charcoal, and Clara got an expression on her face like a mix of hopeful and guilty when she saw Esmeralda.

It turned out that they were the reincarnations of the people the others married in their first lives. The best way to summarize my mood when we found that out is "awkwarrrrd..." It wasn't necessarily a fun day for Sam, who I know felt really, really guilty about me and Alex (Rosie Cotton) and her relationship to both of us. I would have tried to make her feel better, but I wasn't exactly the best source of comfort at the moment. Needless to say, it was spectacularly awkward with me and Alex for a couple of days (neither of us were awkward with Sam, though, because it's almost impossible to be awkward with Sam). All three of us despised love triangles, and Alex and I _liked_ each other, for crying out loud. We ended up coming to an agreement, which you will hear more about when we get to hear Alex's side of the story. For now, back to my side.)

The car was silent for a while. I kept waiting for Clara or Daisy to shatter it with some random non sequitur, or for Gandalf to tell us how far we were from our destination.

I finally broke it with "Are we going to stop soon? I need a cigarette."

"Believe me, I understand your pain," said Gandalf. "We're almost in Kansas City. We're going to meet some others there."

We all started talking at once. All I really know is that Will was demanding to know whether or not the Company was coming, Sam and I started asking about Boromir and Faramir, and Clara was loudly and excitedly telling Daisy about Eowyn.

"**_Silence!_**"

The car suddenly had a lot more storm clouds coming from the front seat. Sam and Daisy shrunk down into their seats, Clara froze with wide eyes, and I tensed up with my fingernails slicing into my palms. I couldn't see Will, but I knew he was squeezing his eyes shut, taking a deep breath, and opening them again (that's what he always does when he relives a bad memory).

Gandalf slowly blew the air out of his lungs and the storm clouds receded. "My apologies," he said stiffly (he doesn't usually apologize for doing that, but I guess he knew we were still pretty upset about the reincarnation thing, just hiding it behind nervous loquaciousness (at least I know that's what Clara and Daisy were doing. Sam, Will, and I were mostly just trying to avoid talking)). "Yes. We will meet up with the Company, although this is not their quest."

Will's face lit up at that, completely ignoring the second half of that sentence. I knew how ridiculously excited he was about getting to see Thorin. Fili and Kili and everyone else too, of course, but Thorin most of all.  
"But not yet," continued Gandalf. "We're meeting Boromir, Faramir, Eowyn, and Eomer first."

All four of us cheered impossibly loud at that. Clara could call Eowyn a second-best friend, it was nigh-impossible to dislike Eomer, Sam and I were still in debt to Faramir for the Forbidden Pool incident (and he and Daisy had made very good friends while she was in Gondor), and Boromir...

Oh.

Shit.

I must have voiced that thought out loud, because everyone turned to look curiously at me.

"This is about the Boromir thing, isn't it." The way Sam said it told me clearly that it wasn't a question.

"Erm..." As you can see from my extremely intelligent reply, yes, it was about the Boromir thing.

"He's not gonna flip out on you again, y'know."

Daisy gave Clara a deadpan look. "Wowwwwww," she said flatly. "That was so, so tactful, Merry. Let's give 'em a round of applause!" She started sarcastically clapping. I half-smiled, then proceeded to ruin the "I'm fine, everything's fine" vibe I was trying to give off by hiding my face in Sam's shoulder.

"Yeah," Clara replied just as flatly. "I'll tag my triggers from now on."

"Oh, shut up."

"No, _you_ shut up."

"No, _you_ shut up."

It was reassuring to be reminded that some things never change.

* * *

I just realized I forgot to beg for reviews last chapter! Now, as you would know if you'd read my Johanna Potter series, I like to let the characters do this part. Sophia, if you'll do the honors?

Sophia: With pleasure. *turns to audience* Reviews are like lembas bread: just one will be satisfying enough to last a long time.

Sam: Except reviews are even better, because reviews can't be thrown off the side of a cliff and cause anybody to get sent home.

Diana: I said I was sorry for that!

RandomFandom: Hey, what are you doing here? You had last chapter!

Diana: You didn't do end notes for my chapter!

RandomFandom: Ugh. Just review, please.


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